


sunrise, sunset

by orphan_account



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 20:00:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8027017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “It didn’t need to be said,” Kirigiri shrugs. “So I didn’t.”I trust you, she doesn’t say, but Naegi smiles anyway.





	sunrise, sunset

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers up to future ep10.

_is this the little girl i carried?_  
_is this the little boy at play?_  
_i don't remember growing older,_ _  
when did they?_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 When Naegi Makoto is fourteen years old, a letter comes for him in the mail, white as pure-snow, stamped with one of the most famous crests in the country - that of Hope’s Peak Academy, every middle school student’s dream.

His parents are besides themselves with joy - _we’re so proud_ , they tell him - and his sister brags to all her friends and all his friends brag to their siblings - _my friend got into Hope’s Peak, did you know? -_ as all his doubts catch in his throat and he gives a laugh and smile.

 _Are you going?,_ he notices, is the question nobody asks. There’s no reason to. Nobody could fathom why anyone would answer it with anything but an emphatic, excited “yes.” To turn down the opportunity to become a peer of a teen idol, or a highly-acclaimed novelist, or a Junior Olympic swimmer would be - is - madness.

Naegi rubs his fingers over the words “talent” and “luck,” and signs the offer letter with shaky fingers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first trial ends in victory.

A victory in name only, Naegi reflects, sitting on his bed. It’s been freshly made and cleaned, and his walls newly wallpapered. The only evidence that the past few days were not a nightmare might be the lack of dust in his room, but that, by itself, is flimsy.

A knock sounds at the door, and Naegi gets up to let the visitor in. It’s Kirigiri, eyes guarded.

“Good job at the trial,” she says, carefully. When Naegi does not reply, she shifts her balance and speaks again, softer this time. “You know, I think Sayaka left that message to protect you.”

Naegi barely musters a scoff at this line. Maizono _used_ him. He’d been a fool, but when Kirigiri asks, he calls her his _friend_ anyway.

“I’ll carry on with their memories,” he says. Forgiving Maizono is hard, but hating her is harder, he realizes, and the knot in his chest loosens as he says the words. “I’ll move forward in their memory.”

He thinks the ghost of a smile might flash past Kirigiri’s face before she nods, voice calm and solemn. “You’re an optimistic one.”

He grins back weakly. “It’s my only good point, don’t you think?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kirigiri Kyouko knows all too well the weight of a human life.

She doesn’t know why. She can’t quite recall the memories - they’re hazy and dim, filled with a strange, frustrating fog. But when she looks at her gloved hands, she can see blood, can feel an almost familiar, nostalgic sense of urgency rising in her chest. It’s responsibility - responsibility for someone’s safety, responsibility for someone’s memory, responsibility for the truth.

After each trial, the bags under Naegi’s eyes grow a little darker. She tries her best - she really does - to help him. She does her typical work, investigates closely, gathers all the available evidence and draws her best conclusions.

It helps them win, but it doesn’t help ease Naegi’s burden, and soon Kirigiri finds herself drawn further and further into his whirlwind, racing against time to determine everything the mastermind has hidden, from her, about her, about her _friends._

She wonders when she’d started thinking of them that way - when getting out became less about saving herself and more about saving everyone. It feels wholly unnecessary at first - undue stress, increased responsibilities, intensified emotional reactions. But there’s something undeniably warm about sharing a donut with Asahina, or talking over tea with Naegi, or even discussing cold cases with Togami.

She’d always known the weight of a human life, but somewhere along the way, in this messed-up caricature of a high school life, Kirigiri realizes, she’d learned the weight of being human.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Naegi asks, once they’re safely back in the storage room, reeking of filth and garbage. “All those things about the mastermind - I could have -”

“It didn’t need to be said,” Kirigiri shrugs. “So I didn’t.”

 _I trust you_ , she doesn’t say, but Naegi smiles anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naegi throws the Neo-World proposal at them at the end of a long day, the next-to-last one in the Hope’s Peak Survivors Rescue mission, if all went as expected.

“I know they’re Remnants of Despair,” he says, pained look on his face. “Munakata-san has given orders to execute them immediately tomorrow. I know the Neo-World program isn’t completely finished - but it’s functional - and we’ve got kill-switches and backups in place. We have to _try_ to save them, at least.”

Kirigiri looks the bags under his eyes, at the proud curve of his spine. He’s changed so much, she thinks, from when a single death sent him spiraling into grief and self-pity. But they all have - they’ve had to, when there’s this much at stake. She wonders how someone who is trying to carry the whole world on his shoulders can stand so straight, and says, “Okay.”

Togami says, “You’re an idiot.”

( _Well_ , Asahina says, munching on a donut. _At least he didn’t say no_.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her NG code comes as both a surprise and no surprise at all.

 _Survive the fourth time limit with Naegi Makoto alive_ , the bracelet flashes in red LEDs. Of course it’d be something to do with Naegi. She quickly runs through the possible endings - solving the mystery by the fourth time limit, or else, one of them dying.

As she crouches down next to Yukizome’s body, she tries not to think too much about the second one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the time limits creep by too fast, and Kirigiri watches her life slowly dwindle down - minutes and seconds ticking inexorably by in bright red pixels.

She doesn’t know when she’d made the decision - maybe it had been a long time ago, back in the halls of Hope’s Peak Academy, watching Naegi strive forward not only for himself, but for everyone else. Maybe it was his unflinching honesty, his ability to face himself and their situation, the fact that he wasn’t paralyzed by responsibility but took it on, gladly, if there was no one else to bear it.

Maybe it was when she’d realized that if Atlas existed - if there were someone who could carry the weight of the world and all its hearts - it would be Naegi Makoto.

“I will always be with you,” she says to him, mouth full of sentences unneeded and so, left unspoken. _I’m scared of dying. Don’t feel guilty. I hope you miss me._

As her eyes close and her mind drifts, the last one is: _I’m glad I met you._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I’ll get rid of Yukizome,” Munakata spits, single eye burning with singular, concentrated hatred.

And Naegi thinks of Kirigiri. He can see her, now, lying on the ground, unmoving, the left side of her face black with poison. _Why didn’t you tell us?_ Asahina’s voice echoes. His head is woozy from his injuries, and the blood on his hand burns, and his heart hurts, and maybe - maybe it would have been better for them to have never met at all. Because then she wouldn’t be dead, and he wouldn’t be hurting, but as he looks into Munakata’s eyes, behind that hatred - he sees pain, he sees questions that won’t be answered. He sees something like regret, and then he understands.

“Even if Kirigiri had fallen into despair,” he chokes out through gritted teeth. “Even if I had to kill her to save everyone -” he stops for breath. Munakata’s hand loosens, just barely.

What Naegi sees now is an enigmatic smile from a friend, a confidant, a partner. He wonders when death had become such a familiar thing. Maybe they'd grown up too quickly - would live and die, all too soon.  _I will always be with you_ , she says, and he fights to speak through the tears falling from his eyes.

“I’d still be glad that I had met her.”

( _I loved her,_ he doesn't say, but he thinks Munakata understands anyway.)

**Author's Note:**

> 'sunrise, sunset' is actually a wedding song from the musical 'fiddler on the roof,' so the song itself is quite happy, but i've always found the title a little melancholy.
> 
> i watched the episode hours ago and im still not over it, which is why i wrote this thing. sorry that it's a little rough and all over the place, but i hope you enjoyed. maybe one day i'll write them the fic that they deserve ;-;


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